


Try Not to Look So Young and Miserable

by i_am_girlfriday



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Abortion, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friendship, Halloween Costumes, Period-Typical Sexism, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:45:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_girlfriday/pseuds/i_am_girlfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy is a naïve freshman in 1970.  Her only friends are Don, her gruff editor-in-chief at the school paper, and Joan, her glamorous RA.  Pete is still a creep (and this surprises no one).  </p><p>Stan loves to push Peggy’s buttons, but she gets even by undoing hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try Not to Look So Young and Miserable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arbitrarily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/gifts).



> The title comes from the Broken Bells' song "Holding on for Life," a rather appropriate disco influenced track.
> 
> Many thanks to my betas for encouraging me when I needed it.
> 
> I hope my recipient is okay with where I took this... I had so much fun writing and researching this story. May your Yuletide be merry and bright!
> 
> Quotes and scenes taken directly from the series are from: The New Girl, 2x05; My Old Kentucky Home, 3x03; Waldorf Stories, 4x06.
> 
> Please read the tags and see the notes at the end for further explanation if you think this may be triggering.

When Peggy goes off to college in late August of 1970, she takes a suitcase with clothes that are what her mother calls _demure_ \--they are clearly five years or more out of date, and all of them are hand-me-downs from her sister and cousins. Peggy has never had anything all for herself. That all changes when she walks onto the ivy covered campus. There are no Olsons her senior or junior with whom she must share this college experience. Her dorm room is sparse with only two beds, two desks, a small bookshelf under the window, and a shared closet--it’s perfect, just like it was pictured in the brochure. 

She meets her roommate, Karen, a Swede, also from Brooklyn. They make loose plans to attend mass on Saturday evenings together and to scout out campus before classes start. By dinnertime it’s clear they will be courteous roommates, but probably not friends. Karen has a girlish laugh that grates on Peggy’s nerves. She’s got a boyfriend back home, but makes it clear she’s looking for something a little more local. Peggy is not a prude, but her first priority is school and she’s frankly a little surprised to find that’s not the case for all of her classmates. Karen and the two Sandies and Barbara from the first floor leave past curfew. Karen ditches her keys and puts a funny cigarette and a rubber in the back pocket of her Levi’s. Peggy spends the night organizing her desk drawers and tracing the campus map with the most efficient routes to her classes.

***

Peggy doesn’t let herself feel homesick. She’s the first to go college in her family, and it is too much of a luxury to waste on feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she attacks her coursework with enthusiasm and joins the school paper. She has her favorite table at the library and a schedule that keeps her out of the dorm room for the majority of the day. When she returns late in the evenings, her room always smells the same--like Aqua Velva men’s cologne, Karen’s singed hair from the iron she uses to straighten it, and Virginia Slims menthol cigarettes.

The editor-in-chief of the newspaper is a fourth year named Don Draper. He has a persistent five o’clock shadow and thinks Peggy is an idiot for the first two weeks of their acquaintance. To be fair, Don thinks everyone is an idiot, but that’s because he’s twenty-six and served in Vietnam. He’s seen _actual_ action.

“Unlike the boys on campus who have education exemptions,” his lips curl in distaste, like he might as well be calling them draft dodgers. 

Peggy and Don are an odd pair, but they become friends due to their mutual inability to fit in with the rest of the student body. They eat together in the dining hall most days, and the Sandies and Barbaras make scandalized faces, as if a man and a women being platonic friends is the worst they have seen.

“How’s your editorial coming for Thursday’s edition?” Peggy asks while poking at her chicken fried steak.

“Fine,” he says between bites. Don isn’t exactly conversational, but Peggy doesn’t take it personally.

“Are you going to make deadline for your puff piece?” Don sneers, his resentment about her article is obvious.

“It’s almost there. And you don’t have to look so nauseated. It’s a critical look at romance novels on the _New York Times_ bestsellers list.” She emphasizes the word critical, hoping to deflect Don’s discomfort with running a story about romance novels at all.

“Keep it snappy and focused. Save your purple prose for your diary.” Don points an accusatory spoonful of pudding at her.

“Dear Diary, today Don made a joke.” Peggy quirks her mouth and picks up her tray to leave.

Don snorts and that’s their last exchange before her piece runs in Friday’s edition of _The Emerald_. When she goes into the newspaper’s office in the sublevel of the student center, she takes a couple extra issues to take home at Thanksgiving. She finds another issue in her inbox, Don’s block letters scrawled across the middle, NOT BAD, KID. Something blooms inside her chest and it makes it hard to keep a small smile off her face for the rest of the day.

***

At the end of October, Karen and some of the other girls Peggy vaguely recognizes from their floor invite her to a party at the Pi Kappa Alpha house. It’s a Halloween party and they insist that Peggy dress up in costume. Peggy declares that she’d rather stay in and study than find a costume, but Joan, her RA, has a better idea.

“Come here.” Her tone of voice is feminine but self-assured.

Peggy follows Joan into her single room, eyeing the dressing table (definitely not standard issue) with jealousy. It’s scattered with perfume bottles, silk scarves, and stockings. Joan’s hair is red and teased like Sophia Loren’s. She’s impossibly built, and Peggy feels every bit the ugly duckling standing next to her. Joan is a senior like Don, and she’s engaged to a doctor in-training in the service. For her birthday he sent her a silk dress with a mandarin collar from Hong Kong where he’d been on R&R.

Joan inspects her wardrobe and sizes Peggy up carefully. She pouts for a moment and then smirks. She spends two hours styling Peggy’s hair and doing her makeup just so. Joan pulls the perfect outfit out of Peggy’s own meager closet, and Peggy accessorizes with a little notebook and makes a similar press badge to the one she wears when covering official assignments for _The Emerald_. This badge has her character’s name on it instead of her own, and rather than clipping it to her lapel like usual, Joan threads it through a lanyard so it hangs between her modest cleavage. Peggy has never felt more chic and put together in her entire life.

“Have fun, Lois Lane,” Joan says at half past eight, watching a steady stream of co-eds walking to Greek Row. She’s in men’s silk pajamas with her hair covered in a scarf and a cigarette dangling from her full lips. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

Karen and the other girls immediately ditch Peggy when a group of fraternity pledges ask them to dance. They saddle Peggy with their sweaters and pocketbooks thinking that a good girl like her will keep watch over them for the night. Instead, she finds an empty chair and dumps them into a pile. She contemplates standing in line for the keg or going for a walk when a barrel chested young man hoists her into a bridal carry before she can decide.

“Put me down!” Peggy tries to wail on his chest, but it’s a feeble attempt while she’s wrapped tightly in his arms.

He laughs and there’s a mischievous glint in his eye. “Stop busting my chops, Lois!” He smells like whiskey and marijuana. He’s quite nearly handsome, if you’re into the burly man type, and Peggy’s pretty sure she’s not.

Peggy notices that the man is in slacks and a sport coat, a Superman shirt peeking out from behind his Oxford and loosened tie. Suddenly everything makes more sense. There’s a group of guys dressed in a motley assortment of costumes and they’re laughing and teasing the guy dressed as Clark Kent and his alter ego Superman. An older man with a camera snaps their photo and for a moment Peggy’s vision blurs from the flash. She elbows ‘Clark’ one more time before he drops her back down to the ground.

“Don’t be like that, Lois! Let me buy you a drink.” He gestures toward the line for beer.

Peggy just rolls her eyes. “I’m quite capable of getting my own free beer, thank you,” she snarks as she straightens out her now rumpled skirt and blouse. 

“Only free ‘cause the Pikes paid for them.” ‘Clark’ raises an eyebrow above his dark framed glasses and puts a large hand on the small of her back.

“Well, tell them I said thanks.” Peggy stalks off to stand in line but she can still feel the heat of his hand where he touched her.

‘Clark’ and his friends roughhouse and laugh, and Peggy is forgotten just like the pile of sweaters from earlier in the night. 

She drinks two warm beers and says, “My name is Peggy Olson, and I’d like to smoke some marijuana,” by way of introduction to a guy named Pete. He’s dressed as Sherlock Holmes and his pipe is full of wacky tobacky. She shotguns with him and lets him feel her up on the grass in the backyard. Peggy is not a virgin; she had sex with Abe the summer before college because she wanted to get it over with and move on with her life. She dated Abe for six months in senior year and even though she didn’t love him, she thought maybe she could have if they'd met later in life, if they weren't cliched high school sweethearts.

Pete offers to walk her back to her dorm and Peggy thinks that’s sort of sweet. He invites himself into Peggy’s building, and she’s too polite to tell him she’s tired and just wants to go to sleep. He gets past the front door because it’s Halloween and all the other girls are out at parties, and really, Joan and the other RAs don’t even enforce curfew or the 'no boys past eight' rule anyway.

Peggy has never heard the dorm so still before. The quiet is decadent and the slight buzz she has going makes her want to lie down in the dark and watch the moon through the sheers. She tosses her quilt onto the floor and Pete joins her. They neck for a bit and Pete moans like it’s the first time he’s done this. He’s persistent and Peggy is pliant. Peter ruts against her helplessly. She’s about to offer him a hand when he mistakes her gesture for encouragement. He pushes her skirt up and pulls her underwear down, then unzips his fly, and there's a moment where Peggy could hold him off, but she doesn't. His hips stutter once, twice, and it’s over.

Peggy grits her teeth and wrinkles her nose. She takes a shallow breath and stares up at the moon wondering how long she has to lay there before it’s acceptable for her to kick Pete out of her room. She tries to stop herself from wondering how and when the night went down this path. But like Mother always said, what’s done is done, and there’s no use crying about spilled milk.

***

Peggy suspects something is amiss a couple of weeks into November when her monthly visitor is conspicuously absent. She resolutely ignores the niggling worry in the back of her mind and redoubles her efforts in school, prepping for finals and working on _The Emerald_. Joan catches her in the library bathroom with 'morning sickness' one late December afternoon. Peggy can't even muster the energy to lie to Joan or herself anymore. She hasn’t kept food down consistently for a week. Don looks at her gravely when she picks at her tray in the dining hall, like he knows exactly what’s going on, and it’s exhausting for her to keep up the pretense. Joan walks her back to the dormitory and makes her camomile tea and feeds her Saltine crackers.

"You don't have to go through with this," Joan says as she tucks Peggy into bed.

Peggy removes the washcloth from her head and balls it up tightly in her fist. She's horrified and simultaneously relieved, like the conversation is giving her permission to make a decision that her Catholic upbringing would otherwise preclude.

"You're from Brooklyn, right?"

"Yes." Peggy's voice sounds wrecked from on and off dry heaving.

"There's a place in Manhattan on Bleecker and Mott.”

Peggy knows all about the Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger Center and how New York is the first state to legalize abortion. Her mother had talked about little else when legislation passed in April. She was convinced it was the sign of end times and had started praying the Rosary twice daily.

“You could go before you have to head home for Christmas break."

Just like that, there's a plan.

***

The plan is simple. There's an available appointment right after Peggy’s last final. Out of misguided chivalry, Don confronts Pete after she confirms his suspicion. She has no idea what Don said to Pete, but Pete gladly hands over money for her procedure and politely avoids her for the rest of the semester. Peggy's train is on time, and she finds the clinic easily. Joan is there afterward and helps Peggy get home while her mother is at Friday night mass. Her mother thinks she caught the flu on public transit so she doesn’t grumble too much when Peggy spends the weekend in bed.

The plan goes off without a hitch, and perhaps that's why Peggy decides she's has to punish herself. She goes through the motions of celebrating Christmas and New Year, and then forgets to look up the train schedule to get back to school. She skips a week and half of winter term and doesn't bother to call Don at _The Emerald_. She misses two deadlines for the paper. By the end of the second week of winter term her mother starts asking her when she's going back to school, and Peggy avoids giving a straight answer. Don calls the house, and Peggy only takes the phone because she’d rather talk to him than explain to her mother why she’s declining his call.

Don chews her out. He's never one to mince words, but this time he really lets her have it. 

“What the hell is going on, Peggy?” His voice is gruff, but calling means he cares, and that affects her resolve.

“I don’t know.” Peggy chews on her lower lip and blinks back tears. She doesn’t want to cry in her mother’s small kitchen that always smells like boiled potatoes and Pine-Sol.

Don is firm with her like always. She pictures him pinching the bridge of his nose, exasperated by her stubbornness. “What do you want?” 

It’s the million dollar question. “I don’t know,” she repeats. Her throat feels like it’s closing up and her voice sounds tinny in her head.

“Yes you do. Peggy, listen to me, get back here and move forward.” He’s commanding her, willing her into action with his words. “This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”

Peggy is quiet on the other end, nodding her head numbly, not that he can see her. She clears her throat, but she can’t form words.

“If you don’t report at the start of spring semester, you’re off the paper for good. And it's a real shame because your writing has graduated from bird cage lining to something resembling journalism.”

Peggy chokes on a sob. It's about the nicest thing Don has ever said to her.

***

Peggy goes back to school in time for the new semester. She loves her spring classes, even her Art Theory class that she needs as a prerequisite for the Writing and Rhetoric major. What she doesn’t love is getting stuck sitting next to Stan Rizzo, jock, frat boy, and ruggedly handsome meathead for the semester. Stan is actually quite talented, from what Peggy can see of his doodles in the margins of his notebook. He draws lewd pictures in class rather than take notes, and he’s made a game out of trying to snap Peggy’s bra when he spots her in the library.

“Careful, Stan, someone might think you’re flirting with me,” Peggy mocks as she adjusts her blouse and the band of her bra.

“Dream on, Olson.” Stan rubs his full beard and takes a seat at her table with a smug smile.

“There are other empty tables on this floor. I don’t know why you have to sit next to me,” she says without looking up from her reading fifteen minutes later.

Stan actually looks affronted. “I’m not sitting next to you! You’ve just got the best table.” 

Peggy does have the best spot in the library. There’s plenty of light, the table isn’t directly under an air vent, and it’s close to the stairs and the water fountain. Twenty minutes later Peggy feels Stan’s feet under the table pushing against hers.

“Aw, you want to play footsie with me?” Stan teases first.

“Now who’s dreaming?” Peggy levels him with a look and then proceeds to ignore him as best as anyone can ignore an all-American jackass with surprisingly soulful eyes and perfect penmanship.

Peggy stops spending her free time in the library after the second week of the semester. She can’t get anything done with Stan bugging her, so she commandeers a desk at _The Emerald_. Don doesn’t seem to mind. Despite avoiding Stan whenever possible, he’s everywhere. 

On a Tuesday, while Peggy reads over the latest issue of _The Emerald_ and drinks her coffee in the dining hall, Stan brings his tray over and sits across from her as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Between bites of his oatmeal and raisins and slurping at a glass of milk, Stan asks her why she doesn’t got to the library anymore.

“I guess I got tired of you snapping my bra like a twelve year old.” She only lowers the paper slightly, just enough so her eyes peer over the top.

“I wouldn’t snap it if you weren’t wearing one.” Stan gives her a shit eating grin.

Peggy is incredulous and gives him a lethal glare.

“All the girls are doing it, Peggy,” Stan sing-songs. “Women’s lib and all that. Shed your brassiere, shed patriarchy.”

She rolls her eyes at him. She’s not getting into this conversation with him again. Her underwear are really none of his concern.

“I’m thinking of joining _The Emerald_.” Stan gestures to her copy of it with his spoon.

Peggy snorts and takes the last swig of her coffee. “You want to come work for Don?” Don’s reputation of being an overbearing editor-in-chief precedes him. “This I have to see.” She grabs her coat and pulls it on and winds a scarf around her neck.

Stan wrinkles his nose at her as he watches her. “It’s like a reverse strip tease.”

“What is your obsession with nudity?” Peggy’s cheeks flush.

“That is the ugliest scarf I have ever seen.”

“My mother made it.” Peggy snaps back and touches the crocheted scarf tenderly. It’s not the most fashionable thing, but neither is Peggy. 

Stan shudders dramatically and goes back to demolishing his toast and eggs next.

“Well, I didn’t ask you!” Peggy storms out of the dining hall, but knows she can’t avoid Stan forever. 

Peggy can’t avoid Stan even for the rest of the day. He’s at _The Emerald_ when she arrives after her last class. Somehow he figured out which one was her desk and he’s sitting at it with his feet up. He’s leaning back, his chair precariously situated, with a sketchpad on his lap. He looks bored, not like this is his first day at the paper.

Peggy doesn’t bother asking Stan to shove over, she knows he won’t on principle alone. “Have you been yelled at by Don yet?” 

“I’m not afraid of him.” He’s got a glint in his eye.

“So that’s a no.” Peggy turns on her heel and grabs the stack of papers in her inbox and leaves.

***

Don assigns Peggy to work with Stan on her first political issues feature. Stan does illustration and Don thinks that combined they can come up with the perfect piece that has both a biting critical commentary and clever satire. They try working in the library together, but Stan is so frustrating that they get kicked out by the librarian within the first hour because Peggy alternates between shushing Stan and whacking him on the shoulder. Stan offers up his apartment off campus, and Peggy is morbidly curious and terrified at the prospect of seeing his inner sanctum.

Peggy makes a show of stepping over the clutter in the small living area and wrinkles her nose at the pile of empty cardboard pizza boxes littering the table.

Stan is exasperated. “You are so uptight.”

“Why, because I wear a bra and choose not to live in a pig sty?” Peggy picks up a stack of newspapers from a chair and sits down primly.

“You’re so judgmental.”

“I think you’re overly concerned with what I am. Let’s just brainstorm and get some work done so I can go home.”

“I can’t work like this,” Stan says and disappears into his bedroom. He reemerges with a _Playboy_ magazine and plops down on the couch. He lights up a joint and proceeds to ignore Peggy while he flips through the magazine.

Peggy sits at the table and goes through her notes about the proposal to lower the voting age and tries to find an angle for the feature. After a good ten minutes, when Stan has made no indication of participating, she gets fed up.

“Are you going to work or just stare at women who can’t stare back?”

“You wouldn’t understand, but this inspires me, opens my mind with freedom.”

Peggy considers that for a moment. Stan does seem preternaturally obsessed with bodies--looking at women in magazines, drawing pin up girls in the margins of his notebook, finding reasons to touch Peggy and commenting on her undergarments. “Why aren’t you a nudist? You talk about it all the time.”

Stan doesn’t even spare her a glance. “In a liberated environment I would be. In the presence of the Pope, or say you, it’s difficult.” He tries to sound bored.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Peggy fires back.

“I know you’re ashamed of your body...or should be at least.”

Peggy’s blood boils. She knows Stan is trying to get a rise out of her, and it’s working, but she’ll be damned if she let’s him get the last word. She stands up and squares her shoulders. She takes a calming breath and peels off her sweater, one of her favorites because it’s classic and doesn’t look too old fashioned.

Stan is distracted from his magazine by the movement. “What are you doing?”

Peggy glares at him and puts her hands on her bare waist. “You’re lazy and you have no ideas.”

Stan’s nostrils flare in a challenge. “Really?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” Peggy tugs at the zipper of her trousers and shimmies them down her thighs.

Stan’s eyes bug out a little. “You’re a fruitcake, you know that?”

Peggy smirks. “And you’re chicken shit. I can work like this. Let’s get liberated.”

Stan pops up from the couch and walks over. “Fantastic.” He tries to laugh, but she can tell it’s forced. He yanks off his suede jacket with the fringe and tosses it somewhere behind him. Then he untucks his shirt and struggles to get it over his head.

Peggy reaches down to kick her trousers off and gather them up with her shoes. She’s in just her bra, panties, and knee highs now. Stan struggles to keep eye contact. Peggy sits back down at the table and removes her stockings, then hooks her fingers in the waist of her panties and pulls them down. The chair is cold on her bottom and she feels a chill run over her skin. She reaches behind her back and unclasps her bra, letting her breasts fall free of the plain white cups. Stan is openly staring at her now and she catches the beginning of a bulge forming in his jeans. It looks painful.

She arches an eyebrow at him. “What are you waiting for?”

Stan looks almost shy as he tugs at his fly. Peggy glances up and doesn’t see a band of the expected white briefs, instead there’s just skin and dark hair trailing into his straining pants. Stan sits quickly and yanks his jeans the rest of the way down revealing nothing underneath.

“Let’s talk lowering the voting age. What have you got?” Peggy taps her pencil impatiently.

“Thinking…”

Peggy seizes the opportunity. She leers across the table at him. “About what?”

She can’t believe her own boldness, but curiosity wins out as she gazes at his erection.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Stan puffs up his chest. “It’s involuntary. Probably left over from the magazine.” Stan grabs his sketchpad and places it strategically over his lap.

Peggy quirks her lips. “Terrific.”

They work like that for two hours before Stan says she should get dressed. His roommate will be home any moment, and “out of respect for Peggy” he thinks they should call it a night. Peggy dresses efficiently and says good night over her shoulder as she exits the front door.

After their stripped down brainstorming session, Peggy still runs into Stan just as often, but now it’s not so unpleasant. They formed an odd truce that night, and while that means Stan’s given up on snapping her bra, it doesn’t mean he leaves her alone entirely. Somehow he tricks her into kissing him on Saint Patrick’s Day, and while it’s not terrible, Peggy doesn’t encourage him any further. Stan takes the hint finally and backs off--there’s way less flirting after that and a lot more begrudging respect.

***

By the end of Peggy’s first year she’s finished most of her pre-requisites, published several memorable features in _The Emerald_ , and made friends with exactly three people. Peggy sits in the stands during Commencement and cheers for Don when his name is called. He’s only there because he lost a bet. To be fair, Peggy might just be the fruitcake Stan suspected. (She is the reigning champion of Truth or Dare.)

When Joan crosses the stage a little while later, Peggy claps and whistles. Joan and Peggy signed an off campus lease together for the next school year. She’s done with her RA gig, and she’s doing a Masters next. Joan declared that Peggy "wouldn’t be a terrible option as far as roommates go.”

When the ceremony is almost entirely over, someone calls out to Peggy from below. “Scoot over,” Stan says as he treks up the stands to where Peggy is seated.

Peggy takes in a clean shaven Stan. She gapes. He’s in a sport coat and slacks with his hair combed off his face. She’s used to his mountain man appearance. Some would call him ruggedly handsome, if they were into that sort of thing, and she’s pretty sure she's not. But something about him in this preppy getup is familiar, too.

Stan slings an arm around her shoulder and starts talking about how he ditched his frat brothers a few stands over. He asks if she wants to go to the Pike house later for a graduation party. He smells of marijuana and whiskey, and when she leans into him, his chest his firm and warm.

Peggy makes an undignified squeak at the memory. “What...” She can’t form a complete sentence. “You--” She pushes him away slightly so she can get a better look at him. “How?”

Stan chucks her chin ever so gently, maybe even _fondly_. Then he pulls at the lanyard around Peggy’s neck that rests between the swell of her breasts.

“Don’t bust my chops, Lois. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.” Stan gets a hand around hers and pulls her up so she’s standing. He smiles at her broadly, and it does something to her insides.

“You…” Peggy looks up at Stan and she sees more than just her friend. Maybe they were never just friends, maybe they were always something more.

She tilts her head up and leans in as Stan leans down. It’s ten times better than their first kiss, because this time she’s ready for it, wants it even. Stan’s lips are soft on hers, insistent, like this is what he’s meant to do with his mouth all along. Maybe everything leading up to this--their semester of bitching and bantering, the constant teasing and taunting--has just been a prelude to a kiss.

+++

**Author's Note:**

> Pete does not get clear verbal consent before having sex with Peggy. Though under the influence, Peggy is aware and conscious. Afterward, she has mixed feelings about the situation, which can be viewed as a result of period-typical gender and sexual violence. 
> 
> Peggy has an abortion in New York, legal in that state starting in 1970.


End file.
